Monday, 26 March 2018

Scoliosis Surgery: An Update (Finally!)

If you've read my most recent blog posts (or caught any of my
moany tweets), you’ll probably know that, five months ago, I underwent spinal
fusion surgery for a condition called scoliosis (pronounced sko-lee-o-sis). Everything is explained in more detail in this post–but, in short, scoliosis is a medical
condition “where the spine twists and curves to the side”. The surgery involved my surgeon straightening out my spine as
much as possible, before fusing the bones together to try and prevent my spine from re-curving. To hold the bones in place while they fuse
(which should take 1-2 years), two metal rods were placed on either side of my
spine, and then attached using 18 metal screws. As long as there's no damage, breakage, or serious issues with the hardware, it should remain in my back for the rest of my life.

Pre-op vs. post-op X-Rays

Before my operation, I spent so much time reading and watching
videos about other people’s experience with the surgery. It helped a lot –
both when I was in hospital, and also now that I’m recovering at home –
especially because the operation isn’t all that common (it’s performed on less
than 0.1% of the population), so it can be quite hard to get a lot of
information about it.

I knew I wanted to write about my own experience at one point in
the hopes that it might help someone else, but I’ve been putting it off for a
while now. Over the last few months, I’ve been anxiously waiting for my
follow-up X-Ray and appointment with my surgeon, and I was ridiculously nervous
to hear what he was going to say. There are a lot of things that can go wrong
with spinal fusion surgery, and some people end up needing a second operation –
or, in the worst cases, they might need several more. In all honesty, I
didn’t feel ready to re-visit my hospital experience in writing until I knew
for sure that I wouldn’t have to re-visit it in real life. (Or at
least not any time soon, anyway!)

I was actually hoping to have an update by January, because spinal
fusion patients normally have a follow-up X-Ray at 3 months to check that
everything is okay with their hardware. Basically, everything needs to be
correctly in place for the first 1-2 years while the spine is still healing, so
they check to make sure that the hardware hasn’t moved, come loose, or become
damaged or broken. If that’s the case, then they’ll need to re-operate – which, I'll be honest, was pretty much my worst nightmare.

My 3 month appointment was supposed to be in January, but of
course this was the same month as the
NHS-crisis-that-the-government-swore-to-god-wasn’t-a-crisis, so it ended up
getting postponed until March. I’m not going to lie: I cried. A lot. I was so
anxious to hear whether everything was okay or not, and the wait and the worry
just felt like it was dragging on forever. Fortunately though, my appointment
got cancelled a second time – but this time, it was rescheduled for February! I
could’ve done a happy-dance. (...If, y’know, I hadn’t just had major spinal
surgery.

Other than that, I guess I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t
struggling. My surgeon and my physiotherapist both say I’m doing well, but it
doesn’t feel like it. Even though I’ve come a hell of a long way from not even
being able to feed myself, I still haven’t made half as much progress as I’d
hoped to by month five. I wasn’t at all prepared for how long, or how
physically and emotionally difficult this would be. I really just want my life
back. (But that’s a post for another time.)

I’m still struggling to do much writing (which is killing me),
because sitting for long periods of time post-op still feels quite
uncomfortable, and can sometimes get pretty painful. I’ve barely spent any time
using a laptop since my surgery, but I really am hoping to get back into
posting as best I can. I miss it so much, and I’ve got so much that I want to
write about. Hopefully, I’ll have a new post up soon!

Until then, I’ll leave you with some cheeky pre-op and post-op
Before and After shots. My scar is healing up nicely, and I'm also clearly getting
better at learning how to stand straight, haha! My hips still aren't perfectly
even and my body isn't perfectly straight, but it's lovely to be able to wear
tight dresses now without feeling self-conscious about my un-even hips! (Not
that I've been dressing up much lately, but I'm sure I'll get there!!)